Things That Take Away My Hunger

Today I was planning to write about barbecue, but I can’t. I know that I should stick to food since this is a cooking blog, but I what I have to say about food seems so unimportant considering the world’s situation right now.

I saw this picture of shoppers at a supermarket in Japan who are limited to purchasing five items.

Add the lack of food and water to the loss of their homes and loved ones, the loss of power, freezing conditions, shortage of medical assistance, possible radiation exposure and all of the chaos and fear this must cause. I can’t imagine going through this. And while Japan is at the forefront of my thoughts today, I know that people suffer globally, and even locally, every day. Horrible things happen to my fellow humans that are so common I often ignore them. Maybe this is my coping mechanism.

Even though I have no solution, I realize that I can’t use this as an excuse to stop caring. There are a few things I came up with that I can do (that you can do as well if you want): 1) Serve locally. Even though I can’t fly to Japan to help the people there, I know that there are people suffering all around me and I need to focus on helping them; 2) If you are a praying person, consider joining me and using the time you would normally spend eating in prayer for the people in Japan today; 3) I am also taking this time to be thankful that I live a very blessed life – the struggles that I’ve had to go through have been very minor inconveniences compared to a tragedy like this one.

Although things like this take away my hunger momentarily, I also know that I can’t let them steal my hunger for living and making a difference in this world.